It feels like the opposite of jury nullification. It grants more power to the state to protect patents than the law has ever been used for. Nullification is historically used as a check on the state, rather than a tool to make the law mean something completely different and much farther reaching. And, of course, it's generally used in criminal cases.
But I don't know how the appeals process will go. I have no idea what makes an appeal possible in a civil case.
It sounds like one of the few angles that possibly could be used as grounds for an appeal. Clearly the jury did not execute their duties correctly in this case and it's been fascinating and quite surprising how openly and freely they have revealed their own willful ignorance. But that ignorance is the product of three things: Samsung's failure to educate them, Apple's failure to educate them, and the judge's failure to instruct them well enough. Samsung and Apple's failure's are clearly not going to be grounds for an appeal ("Your honor, we need an appeal because our lawyers are incompetent!"). The only thing left is if Samsung could show that that Judge Koh did an unusually bad job in instructing the jury. If she instructed them just fine and they still completely ignored her - then I don't see how this will be useful in getting an appeal.
I'm hopeful that Judge Koh will be embarrassed enough by the outcome that she'll dramatically reduce damages or even facilitate the process of an appeal herself. It's pretty clear something has gone wrong here, and if I was a prominent judge I would not want my name attached to it in the history books.
